Blade cuts into SABC over ‘renegades’

SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande has accused the public broadcaster, the SABC, of taking sides in the ANC’s factional battles.

Addressing the SACP’s 13th national conference at the University of Zululand outside Richards Bay, Nzimande slammed the SABC for giving an unnecessary platform to the ANC “renegades”.

He said consumers of SABC news were being force-fed a daily diet of the news about ANC renegades – in a reference to the coverage of talks by expelled ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema.

“Auckland Park is a shame; they run headlines on renegades every morning. Soon we will have to tell them (the SABC) that enough is enough,” he said.

But the communist party boss later stressed that he was not calling for a blackout on reporting on the expelled ANC members.

In another attack on Malema, whom he did not mention by name, Nzimande said the tenderpreneurs were now being opportunistic by labelling the ANC as being tribalist.

Malema recently accused Zuma of being tribalist and of prioritising development in his hometown of Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal.

“Today they are shouting from outside the movement saying there is tribalism, but we expected this from them because they are tenderpreneurs, they are opportunistic and only care about their stomachs,” he said.

Nzimande added that those who were accusing the ANC of being tribalist had become “enemies of the movement”.

He said the SACP did not like tenderpreneurs, while the tenderpreneurs also disliked the party.

“The feeling is absolutely mutual,” he said to applause from about 2 000 delegates who attended the conference.

Nzimande later turned attention to the Independent Newspapers, owner of the Daily News, saying that the newspaper group’s ownership needed to be de-monopolised.

He said perhaps the SACP should wage such a campaign to ensure that the group’s ownership did not fall into one set of hands.

“Lack of diversity (in the media industry) is a threat to media freedom… Some of these big companies are now gobbling up all the community newspapers, some of which were funded through the Media Diversity and Development Agency,” he said.

The SACP said it wanted the foreign ownership of South African media to be regulated, adding that some foreign-based media owners were guilty of asset-stripping in South Africa.

Jeremy Cronin, the deputy general secretary, said the Independent Newspapers’ South African operation had been losing about R500 million annually to its Irish owners.

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